


And You're The Place My Life Begins

by still_lycoris



Category: X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Cage Fights, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Community: hc_bingo, Kidnapping, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, forced transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-15
Updated: 2016-09-15
Packaged: 2018-08-15 01:13:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8036473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/still_lycoris/pseuds/still_lycoris
Summary: The day that Warren’s wings start to grow is also the day that his soulmate’s name appears on his back. Both of these things will change his life forever.





	And You're The Place My Life Begins

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the hc_bingo prompt "invisibility"

The day that Warren’s wings started to grow was also the day that his soulmate’s name appeared on his back.

Warren didn’t understand the significance of the first at the time. His back was hurting quite a bit but the two funny little lumps near his shoulder blades could have been anything. Maybe they’d always been there and he’d just never noticed them before. He’d probably be fine tomorrow.

But the soulmate’s name, _that_ was special. Not everyone had a soulmate. If you did, the name usually appeared between the ages of twelve and fifteen and it stayed on your body for the rest of your life, even if you never met the soulmate in question. It could be anywhere on the body and people in Warren’s class had been joking about having theirs in weird areas but nobody had ever actually proved that they had one.

Warren was thirteen and the name was written there, clear as day, _real_.

Only problem was, he couldn’t read it.

He wasn’t stupid, he was able to recognise hieroglyphics. He even remembered that the black ring around the symbols was called a cartouche and meant that it was a name. But he didn’t have a clue what it said. 

He tried asking people, of course. He copied the hieroglyphs very carefully so he wouldn’t have to take his shirt off, showed them to his teachers, even went to the library. There were a few books about reading hieroglyphs but nothing very helpful and all very complicated. And his marks didn’t seem to match any of the obvious ones that all the books mentioned. Besides, nobody used hieroglyphs any more, did they? He thought that was from the old days ... so why would the name be written in hieroglyphs?

Nobody seemed to have an answer for him. It was weird. But not as weird as the bumps. 

They kept growing. And growing. Warren tried to tell his father but Father wasn’t really interested. He was always busy with deals and stuff like that. It hadn’t mattered so much when he’d been younger cause there had been Mom but Mom was gone now and Father sometimes acted like Warren wasn’t even there. Bumps on his son’s back weren’t as important as whatever the latest thing he was working on. Warren was used to being invisible. Sometimes, he didn’t even mind it. He could do pretty much what he wanted, as long as it didn’t cause enough chaos to make him visible again. Okay, so maybe it would have been nice for Father to say something reassuring about the bumps but it didn’t really matter, did it?

And then bones came out.

Warren went to his father again. He went without his shirt on, made his father look. His father shouted at him for not mentioning them sooner then called a private doctor to examine him.

The answer was simple. Obvious. Blunt.

Warren wasn’t human. Warren was a mutant. And whatever this was, it wasn’t going to go away by itself.

Father didn’t say anything. He paid the doctor a lot of money and told him not to mention this to anybody. Warren guessed the doctor would do that. People usually obeyed his father when Father said things like that. Everyone always obeyed Father. There was nothing that he couldn’t sort out in the world, nothing he couldn’t control ...

... except for this.

“It’s not my fault,” he whispered, desperate for his father to forgive him. “It’s _not_.”

But Father still didn’t say anything. Not directly. He pulled Warren out of school, got him home tutors and started putting money into people who were looking for a cure for mutantism. He called other doctors, doctors who examined Warren and experimented with attempts to strap the strange protrusions down or pin them to Warren’s back. They didn’t care when Warren cried because it hurt and begged them to stop. The new tutors that his father hired so he could continue his education were cold, aloof. They didn’t care either. Nobody cared at all. 

He wasn’t just invisible to his father. He was invisible to everyone now.

Warren comforted himself by thinking of his soulmate. They had to be out there somewhere, maybe reading his name somewhere on their body and thinking about him too. He liked to pretend that it was a beautiful woman with long hair who would hold him and stroke his hair and tell him that it was okay that he was a mutant, that she loved him anyway because they were meant to be together ...

The bone protrusions didn’t disappear. They didn’t get pinned down and when Warren took off the straps, they sprang up again, almost as though nothing had happened. He found that he could move them up and down with flexes of his muscles, which was kind of cool, even if he didn’t understand why he could do it or what it really meant.

Not until the feathers began to grow.

At first, they were fluffy, ridiculous little things. Warren’s father told him to try and shave them off and he obeyed, even though it hurt. But they grew back and they began to grow back better. Longer.

He had skeletal wings now. And soon, Warren knew he’d be able to fly.

And he was excited.

Who wouldn’t be excited? Okay, yeah, he was a mutant but he was a mutant that would be able to _fly_. He couldn’t think of a single person in the world who wouldn’t want that. And maybe, when he could fly properly, he could leave this place. Leave this horrible house where he only existed to be poked and prodded and investigated and find somewhere else, somewhere better, find his soulmate ...

He thought about her even more now. She would be warm and soft and beautiful and she would kiss him with gentle lips and it would make him shiver all over, make him feel so good, so good ...

He was a bit hazy on details. The tutors hadn’t really taught him much about all that, only the cold facts but Warren knew the gist. Knew how it felt when he touched himself, guessed than when someone else did it, it felt a thousand times better ... and if it was your soulmate, it probably felt even better than _that_.

She was out there. He knew she was out there. And he was going to find her and she would care about him the way that nobody else did.

His feathers grew in, white and wonderful. His wings were full now and Warren could feel other changes. His shoulders and arms got stronger, probably to take their weight. Warren worked on them too, wanting to be as strong as he could possibly be.

Father looked at the wings with disgust, with revulsion. When Warren first flapped then in front of him, lifting himself off the ground, Father bellowed at him to stop playing around. Warren’s wings weren’t cool. Warren’s wings weren’t special. Warren’s wings were disgusting. Warren was just a problem that needed solving.

So Warren ran away.

Or rather _flew_ away.

He was just fifteen. He was stupid. He thought that he’d be fine. That everything would be fine. He had some money and okay, Father would probably close his account quickly but he had everything he’d acquired before that. And he’d watched the news. People were accepting of mutants, right? They were cool with weird stuff like this now, it was just his father being crazy, locking him away. Anyway, he was going to find his soulmate. The person made for him. 

Of course, it didn’t work like that.

It wasn’t so bad, not at first. Okay, a lot of people stared at him but Warren didn’t mind that. He had fucking _wings_ , of course people were staring. And okay, some people flinched away from him, acting like his wings were weird and freaky but some people said they were beautiful and even asked if they could touch them. Warren didn’t mind really that at first, even if sometimes, they were a bit rough. But after a while, it got annoying and none of the people really wanted to talk to him. They just wanted to look and touch the wings but they didn’t care who was attached to them.

Then there were the people who got angry. Who yelled at him, who threw stones and cans and anything else they had to hand. The first few times, Warren just flew away but then, he started to get mad. Why should he put up with this when he hadn’t done anything wrong?

That was when he discovered how powerful his wings could be. What a _weapon_ they could be.

He could fight.

Warren had dreams of using his wings for such good things. He could save others! He could fight with them, protect people! Carry people out of burning buildings! He could be so _amazing_ , a hero! People would admire him, love him. It would be wonderful. And if there were bad guys, he could clearly take them down too, fight them because he was strong. He could do _anything_.

The guy who approached him one evening seemed to agree. He talked to Warren in a really friendly way, talked about Warren’s potential, encouraged him to chat about where he was staying, about his family and even bought him a beer, Warren’s first. It didn’t actually taste that great and made Warren feel weirdly sleepy. He tried to keep his eyes open, act like a grown-up but it was hard when his head felt so heavy. The guy seemed to understand, let him lean on his shoulder and Warren couldn’t stop his eyelids from closing, just for a little while ...

When he woke up, he was tied up in a dark place, wings pinned down with ropes and chains that even he couldn’t shake off. The guy he’d spoken to was there and he told Warren that Warren was going to Berlin. That he was going to be a fighter.

“But I don’t want to! You can’t do this!”

“Yes I can. Nobody will miss you, little punk, you said so yourself. You’re mine now. I _own_ you.”

He left Warren then. Warren thrashed and yelled but nobody came. Nobody cared.

Nobody cared that he didn’t want to fight.

Nobody cared that he was scared.

Nobody cared at all.

Maybe nobody ever had.

He got used to the cages quite quickly. It was easier, in a way. You didn’t have to _think_ , you just had to _be_. Do what you had to do. If you fought, if you did well, they gave you food and left you be. If you didn’t, well. That was your own fault, wasn’t it?

They called him Angel for his wings and he liked it. Angel the fighter, Angel the _strong_. 

The Angel of Death.

He tried not to kill the other mutants when he could help it. He _did_. But sometimes they wouldn’t stay down, sometimes it was him or them and if he lost, if he became useless, he would be nothing, he would be dead and he couldn’t let that happen, he couldn’t so he did whatever he had to. He didn’t care. Why should he care? He was _Angel_ and Angel didn’t care about anybody.

Sometimes though, sometimes when he was alone and trying to sleep with his wings wrapped tightly around him in a feathery cocoon, he felt Warren come back. Warren who just wanted to be free, Warren who longed to find the soulmate whose name was still etched into his back. He stroked his feathers to comfort himself, pretended it was someone else soothing, comforting, loving. Someone who would hold him and still accept him, even now. Even after everything he’d done. Maybe they’d come to a match, watch him fight and just _know_ , come for him afterwards and rescue him and everything would be different, everything would be better ...

They’d come. Eventually. One day. Everything would be better then. Because the mark was _real_ so this had to be real too. Had to be. They were real and they would find him and he’d get free, he _would_.

Until then, he just had to fight on. Never lose. And he managed it for two years.

It was kind of funny that he lost on the same day that he got free.

He hadn’t thought the little blue guy would be any trouble, not after the Blob. Yeah, his power was pretty cool but he was nobody, certainly not compared to the people Angel had fought before.

Only it turned out the little bastard was good at what he did. And one lucky grab, one swirl of the tail ...

The _pain_. The horrible smell of sizzling feathers in his nose, the way he couldn’t keep himself in the air properly. And he knew, he knew that they wouldn’t care enough to heal him properly, that he’d never fly right again and he was going to kill Nightcrawler now but it wouldn’t fix anything, it never would ...

And then suddenly, everything went mad and the generators went off. He went for the suddenly useless cage walls, tore his way through and fled.

There was no joy in it. No excitement about being able to see the sky again, no happiness at feeling himself in the air. His wing throbbed and burned and he had barely gotten anywhere before he knew he would have to walk because his injured wing was dragging so badly.

He hid in an old warehouse, stealing food and drink. Maybe his wing would heal. Maybe it would all magically be okay.

Maybe pigs would fucking fly.

His wings were gone. And without them, he was nobody. Nothing. No more Angel. No more Warren. Nothing.

Might as well be dead.

So he hid. And drank. He drank quite a lot.

When the other mutants arrived, he told them to piss off. What else was he going to say? He didn’t want anybody, certainly not _these_ freaks and when they saw him, they wouldn’t want him either. He flew down to them, barely taking anything in except the way they stared at him with pity. He turned away from them, hating everything. What was the use?

Then the pain began.

It was like nothing he’d ever felt before. Raw, tearing pain through his back, his sides, his chest. He saw his ribs breaking through the skin, twisting, tearing. He collapsed to his knees, screaming in agony, feathers falling in showers around him as he arched and struggled, reaching for something and not knowing what, just wanting to get away, wanting it to stop but it wouldn’t, it _wouldn’t_ and oh God, the pan, the _pain._ The feathers that hadn’t fall out were changing, growing cold and heavy and something was bursting out of his back, growing, twisting, _changing_. It hurt, oh God, it still hurt but – 

But ...

There was a heat. A strange heat, a feeling of _power_ rushing through him even through the agony. More power than he’d ever felt before, it was wild, glorious, intoxicating ... almost familiar.

 _Good_.

“Rise, my angel!”

His wings were _metal_. Glorious metal, heavy but not so heavy that he couldn’t stand. And he could feel something else too, something new, something incredible, something linked to his sinews and muscles that he’d never known before. He flexed and felt feathers – if you could still call them that – fly from him, slamming into the walls, embedding themselves deeply. 

He stared at these new mutants that had just changed his world, made him real again. The women looked amazed, thrilled at his skill but the strange blue one, the powerful one was just watching him, face unreadable.

“Who are you?” he asked because he had to know, he had to know what this was, _who_ it was that had done this.

“My name is En Sabah Nur,” the being replied quietly. He walked forward and Angel let him come towards him until the man was standing right in front of him. “But you know my name already, child.”

“No, I don’t,” he said, his voice sounding sullen to his own ears.

The man – the mutant, the _God_ – smiled. He reached fearlessly over Angel’s shoulder, over those deadly razors that he had created and laid his hand on Angel’s back. His fingers were warm.

“You already wear my name.”

Angel stared into the black, black eyes and felt dizzy. Yes. _Yes_. This was his soulmate, this was who he had been born for, he could feel it inside him, burning and blazing like fire, just a simple fact; _I am yours_.

He didn’t let himself think. He didn’t let himself consider it. He threw his arms around the armoured neck and pressed his lips against the curved blue mouth, kissing wildly, frantically. He clutched at the shoulders, feeling cold armour, reached up to stroke a hand over the bald head, feeling the warmth of skin. He pressed his body close, not caring that all he could feel on his bare chest was biting armour, he needed to be near, he needed to _feel_. He felt a hand gently clasp his hip, the other still resting on his back where the name almost seemed to pulse with knowledge that it had found its owner, that it was his and his alone, that he was _home._

The response he received to his passion was gentle but filled with promise, assurance that later, later Angel would be given everything he had always wanted, always craved for, he just had to wait because now, now it was time for something else. 

En Sabah Nur stepped back from him and Angel stared at him, breathless, gasping. He supposed he ought to be embarrassed that he’d just kissed someone like that with other people watching but he wasn’t. He didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything anymore except this, except being with the one that he had been created for, made for.

“You will come with me,” En Sabah Nur said. It was not a question.

“Yes,” Angel breathed. “Always.”

Finally, _finally_ , he was where he was meant to be. He had found his soulmate. He would never be invisible again, never be hurt again.

Warren Worthington was dead.

And now, now and for the rest of his life, he would be En Sabah Nur’s Angel.


End file.
